LDS Church is great Sales Training Technique for multi-level marketing ?

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Q. LDS Church is great Sales Training Technique for multi-level marketing ? Missionaries receive no sales training. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not pay commission on tithing or other offerings. The Church does not pyramid gross receipts. It does not offer greater salvation to those who convert many as opposed to those who convert few. The leaders of the Church have repeatedly condemned get-rich-quick schemes in no uncertain terms. How, then, is the Church supposed to be such great training for MLM?

A. -I cannot speak for others, but as a missionary for the church in Denmark in the late 1960s, I did, indeed, receive sales training in the form of a sales approach called "missionary lessons" which were memorized down to the level of specific dialog to be used to convince "investigators" to be baptized into the church. As far as I know, the "missionary lessons" were and are still used in all missions. Consequently, I issue a call for documentation that the missionary lessons have been discontinued and that missionaries use some other, more ad hoc approach. Please give the date of the discontinuance and document its source. When on my mission, I immediately recognized the missionary lessons as a classic canned sales approach, similar to those I'd already encountered in retail sales jobs. And when I returned and encountered MLM presentations, I was struck by their similarity to the structure of the missionary lessons. In particular, I draw your attention to their emphasis on "joining" the group and on subsequent missionary efforts to convert more adherents, a key (even crucial) element in MLM procedure (where recruitment is emphasized over the products), and the cheerleading done to keep the troops fired up. I also believe another point of similarity is the subtext of the approaches which emphasize the intangible benefits of each. I believe this daily use of the missionary lessons promoting intangible and subjective benefits preconditions RMs with familiarity to MLM procedures. In addition, as missionaries, you have to promote beliefs others may find far fetched. I believe the daily promotion of what others may consider far fetched beliefs by the missionaries preconditions RMs to avoid critical thinking when "buying in" on get-rich-quick schemes and on MLM concepts and procedures. Based on posts I've read in this thread, I'm not alone and others have noticed and written about the same thing. While you may be technically correct that RMs' salvation is theoretically not dependent proportionately on the number of their baptisms, as a practical matter, the following of baptism numbers in the missions is closely tracked and highly emphasized and elders who do not baptize up to the mission goals or averages are regularly chastized as being "unfaithful," "sinful," "lazy," "not following mission rules and procedures," and "disobedient," and threats against their eternal exaltation are not uncommon. When I was a missionary, I heard them personally at conferences (my baptismal numbers - double those of the mission goals - prevented me from being singled out). I look forward to your documentation that the missionary lessons have been discontinued. And I respectfully ask you to reconsider your position that the missionary lessons do not constitute sales approaches and that they do not precondition RMs to receptivity to MLM procedures. -Much of good sales (as opposed to just shoving things down people's throats) involves establishing relationships of trust and bringing a person to a product or service he really needs or wants. In that sense, the technique taught to missionaries today hasn't changed a bit. However, rather than an appeal to the dialogue or a specific approach, the missionaries memorize a much shorter text, and learn the location and relevance of a pile of scriptures to go with it. Then they're told to use what comes to mind for a specific situation. The invitations for baptism and the invitations to invite friends are set to the side to use as needed, rather than being a part of the main curriculum. The main focus these days is getting investigators to look for themselves, pray for themselves, and recognize the Spirit when it bears them a witness. >Consequently, I issue a call for documentation that the missionary >lessons have been discontinued and that missionaries use some other, >more ad hoc approach. Please give the date of the discontinuance and >document its source. If you want, go pick up the _Missionary Guide_ and copies of the six discussions from the distribution center, you can get 'em online. And make of them what you will, but they permit far more flexibility in a discussion than the old flip-charts and dialogues used to. More like talking points these days than a sales pitch. The source is the Church, the date was the early or mid '80's. The materials ought to cost you about $7, if that. >Based on posts I've read in this thread, I'm not alone and others have >noticed and written about the same thing. You can construe a thing pretty much any way you like, Jim. >elders who >do not baptize up to the mission goals or averages are regularly >chastized as being "unfaithful," "sinful," "lazy," "not following >mission rules and procedures," and "disobedient," That would be a neat trick in the Swiss mission, where the Elders and Sisters average 10 a month, 8-10 of whom go inactive within that month, 7-10 of whom don't even come from Europe. While it's true that some district and zone leaders characterize things that way, and we were always told to set investigator sights on baptism and Temple, we were never characterized as "sinful" or "lazy" just because the people wouldn't go where we tried to lead them. Perhaps the tone of things has changed a bit since you came home? -At the time, while I recognized the mild sales approach structure in the missionary discussions, I also saw how much more effective they could be with some fine tuning which was rejected by my MP because it didn't come from the GAs and I was just a lowly missionary grunt (and, important to him, not related to any GAs) and it was then that I began suspecting that part of the reason for missions in the first place, besides recruitment, might include the classic shared-ordeal procedures designed to build esprit de corps, a feeling of brotherhood, amongst elitist groups, such as is used in training Marines and initiating people into college fraternities. Or, more to the point, to condition missionaries to remain active in the church after their return to civilian life. Though I understand that even here, the recidivism rate is higher than might be desired.

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